Instant name: just add N
Here's a rare name I expect to hear more of in the future: Graden.
Certainly, it has a fashionable sound -- another in the vast rhyming family that includes Aidan, Hayden, Caden and Braeden. But there's more to it than that. Graden sounds like a formal version of a popular formal name that sounds like a nickname. Hmm, was that gibberish? Let me give it another shot.
Classic multisyllabic men's names -- Thomas, Edward -- generally come with two standard nickname options. There's a one-syllable basic (Tom, Ed) and a two-syllable diminutive (Tommy, Eddie). That's sensible enough. After all, the two main functions of nicknames are to shorten and to soften.
Today, though, the standard nicknames are decidedly out of fashion. So far out of fashion that some parents are getting skittish about names that even resemble the form of a traditional nickname. So more and more, you see parents tacking extra endings onto short boys' names, creating a new "formal" version for something that was never a nickname to begin with.
It's not a totally new phenomenon; Rexford is one example from past generations. But the practice is growing. And forget old add-ons like -ford, -burn and -wood. Today there's just one way to extend a name: with the all-powerful letter -n.
For a case study, consider Colton. Colton is a popular contemporary name, currently ranked #117 among American boys' names. It was a surname before it became a baby name, but that doesn't tell the real story. As a surname Colton isn't common at all, ranking behind the likes of Stumpf and Fortenberry in frequency. Nor are there prominent Coltons to raise the name's profile. The key to understanding the name Colton is that it made its debut as a popular baby name in 1982. That's the same debut year as Colt -- which is to say, the first full season of "The Fall Guy," a tv series starring Lee Majors as stuntman/bounty hunter Colt Seavers. At first, Colton was just a quiet shadow of the hardy young cowboy Colt. But by the '90s, the more "formal" Colton was the clear leader of the pack.
Some more popular -n extensions:
All of them, notably, also have rhyming names in the top 1000. Which brings us back to Graden. So you like Grady, but perhaps find it a little boyish? A mere flick of the -n gives you Graden. You can still call him Grady if you like, and the full name blends right in with the current name landscape. It's a nifty 2-for-1...as long as "blending in" is what you're after. If you're customizing the name to make in more distinctive, though, keep in mind that uncommon and distinctive aren't always the same thing. In an age where a third of all boys born get an -n name, Colt and Grady may end up standing out a lot more than Colton and Graden.